Advice please .... am I nitpicking?

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So my partner and I have been invited to Christmas dinner at my in-laws. I had bought a bottle of champagne to take and my partner felt we ought to get something else and so chose some chocolates but then handed them to me to pay. We are both on a pension and similar income. Together over 10 years but don't live together and seperate accounts etc. I am male partner female. When I suggested she might want to pay for the chocolates she refused and said so I said so I am paying for both? She said yes as they (hosts) are my family not hers and I was nit picking. I said she was 'out of order' but this left me feeling upset and I told her and we had a row.

Her parents her money I say. I would not expect my partner to pay for presents for my lot!?

Did you ask her why you should buy both? Unless she thinks that because you're more a 'guest' than her, you should pay for everything?

This all sounds so miserable, and you both sound tight.

I guess you are technically the guest, so it would make sense for you to buy the “hostess gift”

Have you met them before? Does she want you to make a good impression?

This is the only thing I was maybe thinking.

But if OP has already bought champagne I think it’s still a bit weird to demand chocolates paid for as well.

I'm confused. If they're your in-laws, how are they your family and not hers?

That’s what I was wondering!

It’s irrelevant who the hosts are. You are both going, so both of you are guests, so a joint present. Therefore, she should have contributed.

However, if she considers the gift from you alone, and not her included, then she should get her own gift to take to the hosts. Flowers?

Me too.

Are they your parents or her parents as they can't be your in laws if they are your parents!

Unless this is some kind of Hillbilly set up.

I wouldn’t necessarily think to take a hosting gift to my own parents, nor they to me. Surely she will have got them Christmas presents which she will have paid for. I think after ten years you would already have a protocol for these situations.

Bit confused too: but to my mind she was prompting you to be more generous and you felt, rightly or wrongly, that you were generous enough.

You should be able to say to a partner of ten years “this is what I feel comfortable bringing.” She should be comfortable with your level of gifting.

Something is off in your relationship. She wants you to be seen as more moneyed or generous than you can support. And you want to be agreeable to her suggestions but don’t feel you should have to bear the cost.

This is a dispute over a box of chocolates but its not about the chocolates. Have a good talk about what is going on. Are you partners or just jogging along conveniently? Are the chocolates standing in for something else?

To my mind, if you're at the shops and someone else wants something, they should pay for it unless you offer. The details don't matter, what matters is she sees you as someone who pays for her choices. Personally I wouldn't be okay with that unless we'd been together in a very committed relationship (living together as well) for a long time and were sharing everything.

It is normal when attending somebody's house for a meal to buy wine, flowers, chocolates. She's being a tight arse regardless of whose relative it is. Have you paid for anything when gone to her relatives?

Whoevers family they are pays. But if you're arguing over the cost of a box of chocolates I'd say there arebigger issues.

If your partner wanted to get something else she should have paid for something else.

But your post makes no sense. Whose parents was it?

Whose family is it you're going to?

The idea of retirement is to live the best life you can. Why spend it with a woman who is stingy?

As you'd already bought the champagne and it was her suggestion to get something else, yes she should have paid!

I think you must have more serious issues in your relationship if you are arguing about who pays for a box of chocolates.
Are you happy together generally?

This. ^ I couldn't live like this. Penny pinching, my money/your money/splitting things down the last penny, and someone being resentful if they pay tuppence more than me towards anything.

Couldn't be in a relationship like this.